A Sword out of Time
by Heroic Sunbro
Summary: "Currently, I am getting more than I bargained for. It is late in the night, and I have already killed three hapless mercs earlier, and barely avoided an encounter with a thresher maw. A goddamn thresher maw that would have been end of the line for me." Follow Kason, the bounty hunter and his strange encounters with the mystical people of Galbatroya.
1. Prologue

The first shot pierces the silence that had been lying heavily on the ruins for a while now. It also takes down my shields completely, leaving me largely unprotected from the dangers of whichever sniper had shot at me. I dive for cover, and pray that the sniper is alone. Another shot follows through, obviously from a different angle, confirming the presence of multiple hostiles. The shot barely grazes my reinforced armor, and though my heart is beating like a motherfucker, I am yet undamaged.

This planet is harsh environment… Tuchanka, the krogan home world, boasts a myriad of dangers. I work only in the night; daytime is too fucking hot, even here in the northern parts. I spend daytime in a damned uncomfortable environmental pod, sleeping. I spend the nights working, although work may as well be translated to desperately shooting, running, and sometimes sneaking my way through any obstacles in my way. I am a bounty hunter, and I hunt as much for the thrill of it as I do for the money. I am better outfitted than a soldier is, but not quite on par with the good mercenaries. My shield is strong enough to take a sniper bullet without hurting me, and I have a selection of weapons in my arsenal. I have confidence in my abilities, and I enjoy fighting.

Currently, I am getting more than I bargained for. It is late in the night, and I have already killed three hapless mercs earlier, and barely avoided an encounter with a thresher maw. A goddamn thresher maw that would have been end of the line for me.

End of the line… these two snipers could well spell "end of the line" anyway. My job is to take down a member of the blue suns mercenaries, who had been stealing a ton of money from Synthetic Insights Corporation through a self-developing VI virus. I figured someone like that would be a coward, but he touched down on fucking Tuchanka, so I salute him. I guess his entourage was the three mercs I had already killed, and then these two assholes. I should assume he has more mercs with him, but I really don't think he has any more than the five I have confirmed so far.

Another loud shot thunders throughout the ruins. I am in cover, but the shot pierces the stones of my cover pretty close to my face. It is time to move, and though my scanners are scrambled, I have a fairly good idea of both snipers position. I silently make my way up a staircase featuring perfect cover. I have a strong scrambler, and they can't see me. If I move quietly enough, they won't see me coming. Another shot makes its way through the stones of my cover somewhere in front of me. This is bad news for me; it means they've used their tiny little brains to anticipate my moving up the stairs… If I can just make it up there, I will have plenty of cover and different paths to take me closer to them. They will have no way to anticipate my movement. I take the chance and sprint. They won't be able to hit me if I'm fast enough, and once I'm up there, I will have so much cover they won't be able to take a shot at all.

20 meters…  
10 meters and I hear an earsplitting shot fly past me somewhere behind.  
I throw myself forward into safety. The ruins is that of a great temple. The stairs I just traversed led into a room with open doors in all four walls. The snipers were aiming at me while I was just outside the temple, but now that I'm inside, they have lost their advantage. They will probably switch to close ranged weapons and start searching for me. They still have an advantage in numbers, and I haven't been to these ruins before, so I'm assuming they know the layout better than I.

As I reach in to my pocket, and grab 10 tiny objects, I feel a thrill of excitement. This is why I became a bounty hunter. I am alone in an ancient temple with two capable enemies on a search and destroy mission with me as their target. I love this kind of situation, I find it absolutely exhilarating. I place the 10 tiny objects around the room I'm in. I go to one of the open doors, one I'm assuming leads to one of the snipers locations, and whistle a loud tune. I then exit through one of the other doors, into a more open room. As soon as an organic being larger than a dog, and smaller than an elcor, sets foot in that room, a neural shock will kill it. Unless it is protected by a good shield or biotic barrier, but I highly doubt any of these assholes have that kind of expensive gear. I have to keep a low profile now. I assume they are clever enough to split up, so my trap will only kill one of them.

The room I've entered is large and open, featuring four large pillars in a square formation in the center. I quietly run up to the pillars, and ready my assault rifle. Stupid limited cover. I feel quite exposed, and I know they must be on their way. Twenty seconds later and I hear a small electronic burst from the previous room, and an alarmed outburst from what sounds like a turian. Next, I hear the sound of a shield going off-line. I curse under my breath as the sounds bear witness to my trap having failed. Why does this pompous asswipe have a shield anyway? I didn't expect my target to be important enough for a five man entourage, but this is the second goddamned merc with a kinetic barrier! I remain silent, and a few seconds later, a stupid unshielded turian head starts peeking around the corner. Fast as lightning, I exit my cover and place 3 bullets in his forehead. One down, one to go.

I've made my way further into the temple. I'm starting to suspect that the second sniper hasn't moved at all. The next few rooms look smaller, and I believe my sniper is hiding in one of these rooms. He's probably got his gun pointed to the door he's expecting me to enter from. Unfortunately for him, I've circled around. I should be able to take him by surprise. I quietly switch to my shotgun, the perfect weapon for these close quarters.

As I step into the next room, my world is instantly lit on fire. I hear three thundering shots, and a bright blitz blind me for every loud bang. I feel one of them taking down my newly regenerated shields, and another one graze my armor. I cannot see a damned thing, blinded by the blitz of my opponent's weapon, so I pull the trigger in desperation. My opponent flies to the floor, and I can hear his weapon flying through the room, and landing a few meters away. I hear struggled breathing, but it is not a clear death rattle. I need to finish the job ASAP. My eyes are already re-adjusting, so I can see again. I walk straight up to the downed opponent, and ready my weapon for a killing headshot.

I'm okay with killing bad people. The way I see it, these criminals are hurting innocent people, and killing them helps stopping innocents from suffering. I think that's noble, plus it earns me money when they have a bounty on theirs stupid little heads. In addition, I see combat as a glorious and fair competition that they've chosen to participate in by becoming criminal!  
The enemy lying before me is a woman. This doesn't usually bother me terribly; I see no reason to discriminate if they're capable of hurting others and are any good in a firefight. Women are capable of becoming as fierce and evil as any man.  
I cannot determine her race.  
I've never thought twice about killing anyone, because all my targets have deserved to die.  
She's alien, but humanoid.  
Not once, because all my targets fought for their life in a fair duel, and lost.  
Her eyes have inhumanly large iris.  
This is always very easy for me.  
Her skin tone is bright blue.  
I never hesitate to kill, ever. 

…

Well, shit.


	2. Chapter 1

She is making a rattling sound. Her throat struggling to spin some kind of word. She is shaking all over her fragile little body. Her armor is of poor make, and looks stolen. She didn't have any shields, and her shooting was terrible, considering her initial advantage. Her eyes widen, as she desperately tries to convey a verbal message.  
"Ki-" She tries, but fails, while coughing and crying with pain. Fucking hell I think she's asking me to end it. A stream of tears is running down both her cheeks, which are covered in dirt.  
I start shaking as well now. It is as if an ice cold, and forceful wave has swept over me, and its name is Guilt.  
"Kill me!" She succeeds in saying, but I'm barely listening.  
How could I harm something so unique, so beautiful? Her entire face is uncovered, and I can say now that she is without a doubt not of any race I've ever seen or heard of before. My immediate speculation is that she might be a quarian without her mask on, but this theory dies quickly, as her legs resemble regular human legs.  
"Please by the holiest giant in the sky…" she desperately utters through a cry of pain, coughing and choking on some blood. The only logical thing for me to do is kill her. If I try to walk away, she could still shoot me in the back, and it's not like I should be saving someone who has chosen to protect a bad guy like that blue suns hacker.  
I frantically turn on my omni tool, trying to figure out how much medi-gel I have left, and assessing her damage. It is looking bad. The wound is lethal without medi-gel, and even with medi-gel it's still dangerous. I have a single dose left; the stuff is expensive as hell. My hands are shaking heavily as I apply the stuff to her wound. She doesn't seem to understand what is going on, and though she is crying and shaking, I doubt that she is truly conscious at all. The medi-gel covers the wound, and her breathing slows down a little bit. A few of the metal pieces from my shotgun shot has grazed her face, but it is only surface scars. I attempt to calm myself down, as I radio Elgretor.  
No response… for fucks sake!

Elgretor is my second in command, fighter pilot, and the best damn sniper you ever saw. Currently I'd be more generous in my description of him if he'd answer the goddamn radio!  
He's supposed to be back at the ship, fixing our main gun which was damaged after taking a hit from a blue suns fighter send by my witless target.  
I sigh of stress under my breath wondering what I should do with the, now completely unconscious alien lying in the stone ruin. Elgretor was supposed to come pick me up, as soon as I signaled him. He usually takes one of our two fighters, since they each have enough space for three men and a pilot. They are some heavy ass fighters, but they pack a punch, and doubles as shuttles.  
As I try to radio him once more, my attempt is thwarted by a silent click and my omni-tool turns itself off completely.

I immediately roll over to my gun, and skip over to the corner of the room, where I turn, and make myself as small as possible, keeping my eyes on the two doorway entrances into the room. Somebody must have used a dampening signal nearby, trying to scramble communications. I'm not alone.

I expect him to enter from the same door I did. It is the most likely way to get a jump on your enemy, assuming he knows my position. It turns out I was completely mistaken, for the guy does not enter through any door at all. Instead, he enters through the window. It is the same window that the female sniper had been firing at me from. I react fast, and Fire at the salarian bastard several times, but he has a freakishly strong kinetic shield. I nail him with a full frontal assault shotgun blast FIVE times, before he closes the distance over to me. His shields drop, but that's all it does. He's at hand to hand range, and here is where guns become obsolete. I let go of my weapon to try and use martial arts against him. I attempt to grab his big stupid salarian head, but he moves unnaturally fast.  
A shot of pain runs through my spine as he pins me towards the wall. My arms are jerked in an uncomfortable position, and I have completely lost the fight. I feel a shock of terror, as I realize that I have lost the deadly game, and therefore deserve to die.  
He draws a gun, and places it on my forehead, I am still completely pinned and immobilized. I close my eyes in anticipation. A loud thundering gunshot is heard but I'm still fine? The salarian makes a strange jerk, and I feel warm blood on my face. As I open my eyes, the salarian collapses on the floor, dead. I look around, but the woman is still out cold. Then I hear the engine of the fighter closing in on the temple.

"Yo Kason my man, you got nailed by a salarian!" Elgretor yells in through the window, laughing and smiling at me. He's sitting by the open door into the fighter, with a sniper rifle in his arms. The glass cockpit open its window, and Saria leans out and yells at me:  
"Are you hurt?" she draws the fighter closer to the window, so Elgretor can jump into the room. Saria is the helmsman of our frigate, but she knows how to handle our fighters as well.

Elgretor comes at me with a big grin on his face.  
"We only just received a signal for your radio when you were cut off, lucky for you, it got me worried enough to convince Saria to join me for your pick up"

He looks around the room, I haven't recollected myself well enough to answer him just yet.  
"That our mark?" he asks, nodding towards the woman, lying on the floor. I shake my head and pull myself together.  
"Nah shit, Elgretor. I dunno what she is man, looks like some kind of rare species. I didn't wanna kill it; it could be worth something to someone"  
Elgretors face darkens a little  
"You know I refuse to do any slavery." He says, sternly.  
"I meant to ransom her, or at least scan her biology and sell the data!" I explain. Granted, this wasn't my first intention when I rescued her, but it ain't completely stupid. Data is some valuable shit, and I'm willing to bet that a thorough scan on a rare specimen like her could be worth more than my current contract. Besides, I am wildly against slavery myself. Elgretor considers this for a second, then nods.  
"Yeah but we should still take out that blue suns hacker. Leaving a job unfinished will lead to bad reputation, and I want payback for damaging our main gun." He argues. I tend to agree, but the alien woman's safety feels like my top priority at the moment. I haven't even given thought to the identity of my salarian would-be killer just yet. I might as well though.

As I scan the body of the dead salarian, I learn a startling truth. He is a bounty hunter like myself, but the scoundrel also has a bounty of his own. It is not an insignificant sum either. I have no idea why he came for me, but it is my luck; now my team and I can claim his bounty as well!  
Man, we're opening a bottle of whisky tonight!  
It gets even better too, as my actual target will be less than a kilometer away by now. My previous work has resulted in him being grounded, and today I took out the final mercs of his entourage.

"Oi Saria!" I yell, and she sticks out her raven haired head and answers  
"what is it? Are you okay?" She's probably worried because Elgretor had to fire at someone standing straight in front of me, but his aim is freakishly good, so there was never any need for concern.  
"I need you to take this woman back to the Mimicry and have her wounds treated with care!" I yell, and order Elgretor to help Saria haul the unconscious woman into the fighter. Then I take the signature of the salarians body by scanning him again with my omni-tool and recording the data, we'll need it to claim his bounty. I then sign Elgretor to follow me. Now that he's here, he might as well help me take out our mark.

Five hours later, and we're back at the ship, a freighter my team and I have dubbed the Mimicry. We have two bounties to claim, and a wounded but precious rare alien in our med-bay. This has been a very profitable day, and my earlier frantic situation is all but forgotten.


End file.
